Why do Atheists care about Religion?

What's That Smell?

Two questions today:

1. How should we react to our government torturing people?
2. What is Kissinger doing here? Or as Dave Attell says, "What's that smell?"

1. In the past, other countries did similar things, so what's the problem? We're at war, no?
Why should we be better than the Khymer Rouge? After all, struggle is the father of all things. It is not by the principles of humanity that man lives or is able to preserve himself above the animal world, but solely by means of the most brutal struggle.

Oh, wait, I'm plagiarizing.

2. As for the other question, we finally see the proof that Bush wants to achieve a lasting peace in Iraq; why else would he have a Nobel Peace Prize winner advising him?

Wait, I have a quote from him as well:

No foreign policy—no matter how ingenious—has any chance of success if it is born in the minds of a few and carried in the hearts of none.

What does that mean? It gives us two options: either leave Iraq now or work harder on the propaganda.

No Threat

My Life

After my three years of disillusionment in the Israeli army, and before I was supposed to start college, I took some time off and went to visit friends who had moved to London. There, I painted my hair purple, got another earring, learned the secrets and the meaning of life (whatever it was, I forgot), and started playing in a band. I decided not to return to Israel for school, instead, learning true life lessons in a life of independence and risk-taking. It was random.

I've never worked in an amusement park, never was a scientist, never was a porn star or a model, never was an athlete, never was a politician, never led a group of hikers up the mountains of Nepal, and I never will.

Robert Schimmel

About the Gallup Poll

And now we have a Gallup poll that suggests a majority of Americans think Bush is more to blame for the failure to catch Bin Laden. Isn't that amazing? Look how happy we are. Liberal blogs are filled with joy. However, there is a bigger picture here: The question of whose fault it is has been raised.

We had the Path to 9/11, then we had the Fox News ambush, and now we have a Gallup poll, all pointing in one direction: The ambiguity of blame.

I'm not saying Gallup is working with Rove to create this poll, only that it has responded to these currents created by Rove and manipulated by the Foxes. What was so clear, the failure of the Bush administration to catch Bin Laden (or even try to catch him), has been transformed into a question mark. Instead of blame being assigned to Bush by the pure logic of facts on the ground and of Bush's own admissions, we are faced with a carefully constructed question mark.

To all those who thought Rove was too busy with legal battles, here we can see his reappearance.

And as for Bill Clinton, he continues his bi-partisan world tour, one moment appearing on stage with Laura Bush, the other moment praising Blair.

Can't he see who we're dealing with here? It's not just inaction against terrorism; it's war crimes and it's the rise of a Republican theocracy.

The answer is clear.

I used to be twenty-something

Investing so much in youth seems to have taken its toll on me. In my twenties, I thought of myself as a part of the generation. Forget about Boomers and The Greatest and the Gen-Xes. I was the one whose job it would be to define my generation. I read Dorian Gray and thought I had some essence of eternal beauty. My opinions mattered most, while those of my peers were a distant second. Out of the picture were opinions of TV talking-heads, dead philosophers, people who liked Jazz or Classical music, people without a TV, people who talked about mortgage rates, law-school students, people who smiled too much, and anyone over thirty.

I befriended a thirty-two-year-old man with a sober view of life, but he had a wife and a son, and he was born ten years before me. I wanted to make our friendship work, I really did, but there was no way a guy like me, with so much of his identity determined upon seeing himself as a part of a particular generation, with so much invested in his twenty-somethingness, could hang out with such an old man.

I tried once. I went to visit him in Cambridge and met his wife and son. His wife didn’t love him, and his son scared me, so we went for a walk in the university. All around us were young people riding bikes, with their sparking eyes, full of ambitions and dreams, and I thought it must have been so sad to be him, surrounded by mirror images of his youth, the train passing him by every waking hour. We sat in a bar and he had a sad laugh. He talked about his wife. His friends didn’t like her. He asked me, “Isn’t my son beautiful?” I nodded, and he said, “I guess every parent thinks his son is the most beautiful kid in the world.”

I believe pity is partly a matter of power over others. When I pity poor starved kids in Africa, I acknowledge my situation is better than theirs, and with my pity comes at least the possibility of helping them. As long as I can help them and they can’t help me I maintain my power over them. And so, my pity over my friend's perceived dead-end world was perhaps an attempt by me to reinforce my superior position in life.

I had no idea.

Andy Dick - Speechwriter

A Bad Day to be a Republican

At first glance, it seems like today wasn't a good day to be a Republican. A lot of things have gone wrong:

• An intelligence report showed the war has made us less safe. Yes. I knew that too.
• The army admitted it was losing the battle in Iraq.
• What do you know? We're also losing in Afghanistan. That is, as long as you read Newsweek in any other country.
  

Wait, I'm sorry. I'm being distracted by something very cute. What were we talking about?

• The Roadmap to Peace is back at square one.
• The Pentagon is extending Iraq duty for thousands.

Sorry, distracted again by cheap, cheap gas. Maybe I'm not one of the cynical 50%.

• Poor Rumsfeld. Everyone hates him.
• Poor Earth. Everyone abuses it.

Enough! Can't a Republican get a break?
Thank God and thank Bush, we're relatively safe again!

Some facts

Knowing there’s no escape from the human condition and the inherent need for relevance, I might as well embrace it. I might as well offer some truisms (and none of that “in my opinion” business; these are irrefutable facts):

The best opening song in an album is “What’s Going On.”
The best movie is Groundhog Day. If you disagree write your own blog.
The most beautiful thing in the world is an honest smile.
The Soft Bulletin is the best album.
I saw the Stone Roses in Wembly Arena, in what was their finest hour.
Tucking a shirt in is essential.
Bill Hicks was funny. Shame he's dead.

I imagine myself with Junior on my knee. I pat his hair and smile. “No,” I will say. “Olive oil may be better for your health, but when it comes to taste, an omelet is much better with vegetable oil. It’s cheaper, too.”

Daily Video - My first You Tube video. It's a profound one.

When Clinton came to Fox News

The most interesting item today is the Clinton-Fox News interview. Why would anyone choose to go through a Fox News interview is beyond me, but they do it, one after another. They go on O'Reilly, thinking they can convince him or at least convince the viewers while they fail to consider the fact that O'Reilly controls the volume and that soon enough they will all find themselves screaming truth to perceived power. It's unbearable to watch.

And here Bill Clinton, with his new bipartisan agenda for world peace and third-world prosperity and all the other stuff that ex-presidents do to be remembered fondly by historians, goes on Fox News and talks to the one person who had complained in the past about the Path to 9/11, Chris Wallace, and the Fox machine hammers him as if he was personally responsible for Bin Laden's welfare.

Again, the false idea that Richard Clarke said what he said because he was a political hack.
Again, the idea that Clinton chose inaction because he was afraid of Wag the Dog criticism.
Again, the passive, Fox News signature-style of attack, "Some people say...", "Some people accuse you...", or in this case--

I’m asking you in good faith because it’s on people’s minds, sir.

Honestly, I'm not saying Keith Olbermann's Countdown is the only place for Democrats, but let's make a goddamn stand here and leave Fox News for those who still think--and will continue to do so no matter how much proof discredits this--that Saddam was responsible for 9/11. by the way, these are the same people who don't believe in evolution.

I know we're talking about a lot of people here, but just like you don't go on the religious channels to try to convince people about evolution, you shouldn't go to Fox News to convince people Bush is capable of making a mistake.

The Power of the Zen Master

Think of a Zen Master sitting in his cave, for example.

This man has left his ego behind, along with his worldly possessions. One might think this man has transcended this need for recognition, but the paradox is evident when a villager makes a pilgrimage up the mountain. “My cow,” the villager might start, “had stopped giving milk, and my wife is unhappy. And that’s not all. My daughter wants to marry an uneducated man and my son is simple.” The Master smiles and tells the villager to carry a bucket of water on his back for a year. The villager nods in confusion, but when he returns to the village he straps a bucket full of water on his back and a year later he reaches enlightenment. Now, it’s evident that this Zen Master is a powerful man, as power is the ability to get others to act. As for me, on the other hand, my power is limited to getting my dog to sit when I offer him a treat.

Zen Master, that’s were it’s at.

Morning Video - Happy New Year Edition

First Video

A harmless little Bill Hicks video to start off the day.

The Great

I want to discover all the great music out there. I want to read all the great books. And I want to write better music and better books. But maybe more than that, I want to be asked my opinion about these things. I want Jon Stewart to try to understand my world view in five minutes. Sure, a longer interview would be nice, maybe Fresh Air on NPR, or In the Actor Studio. Why not? He had Martin Lawrence so I guess anything goes.

At first, I will get to talk about my book and about the reasons for writing, and about the struggle to publish, and about my doubts, and of course about my future projects. The interview can go anywhere, though. At any point I might make a political statement and the interview will go in an unexpected direction. Really? You think the President should be impeached? You think illegal immigrants are modern-day slaves? You think the two-party system alienates voters? My, oh, my. How could we have lived without these second-hand opinions?

We all want to matter in our all-too-human way. Even the Dalai Lama wants to be recognized. Why else would he sign all his books with the prefix “His Holiness”?

The Devil in My Cereals

When I lived in London, I used to get mad at my roommate for eating my cereal. Oh, I knew better, but I couldn’t help myself. Knowing it was wrong of me to get angry, I would wake up in the morning, after he had already left for work, and I’d notice the box wasn’t placed in the exact same spot I left it the day before. It wasn’t money, or the fear of running out of cereal or anything semi-logical as that. I simply let my ego take control of me. I was mad because I wasn’t asked; was not given the opportunity to sit in my royal chair and be the benevolent roommate that says, “Of course you can take some of my cereal. What’s mine is yours.”

Then one night we went to a club. We were each wondering the club by ourselves for a while when I saw him sitting on the stairs next to an Irish guy. I wasn’t close enough to hear what that man was saying, but he seemed to take the conversation very seriously, lifting his finger and moving it decisively. He was having the most important conversation of his life. Sitting next to him, my roommate was laughing himself to tears. He gestured for me to come closer and said, “I don’t understand a word he’s saying. He’s been talking to me for an hour.”

Some time later, it was just the two of us again. Two friends in an unknown territory. Lewis and Clarke. And I felt ashamed of myself for the way I had felt before. There were real moments in life, like sitting in a club with my best friend, and there were fake moments and emotions, like worrying about cereals. Things started to make sense.

The next morning. . . . Is there even a point in writing what followed? It's unbearably clear and predetermined, isn’t it? Human, all too human. I mean, is there anything better after a long night of partying than eating an overflowing bowl of cereal? I hated him as my ego resurfaced. That bastard finished my cereal. And you know what? It wasn’t the cereal; it was the principal.

Whenever you talk about a principal to justify your feelings you can be sure that in this battle the Devil has won.

At some point you stop trying. You’ll never be as great as The Great.

I guess I was about twelve when one day I visited my uncle and his family. They were all outside, grilling or something, or talking, or whatever it is people do, and I was sitting on the couch in the living room. By the way, they have a TV set, but not in the living room. They have one maybe in the kitchen or in some other designated room, but not in the living room. That space is supposedly used for more intellectual activities, like mother and son playing classical music together.

So I took out a harmonica they had there in a box and started playing. Anyone who's ever had any musical training (for me, it was about a year of a two-level, big in the ‘80s organ), learning to play the harmonica is very easy. You blow and get a C, breath in and get a D. There’s a trick in the end with the A and the B, but other than that it’s easy. You blow into the first three holes and get a perfect C chord. What could be easier than that? By the end of the day, I wasn’t a good harmonica player; I wasn’t able to play the dreaded Minors or Flats and I had no idea what playing a blues harmonica would be like, but I could easily play along with Dylan. The thing is, that’s still all I know and all I will ever know. There is no future in harmonica for me. It’s not like I felt when I was younger, that any activity on any day could lead me onto an imaginary path. Like the day I learned to juggle: I can juggle, but I can’t do any tricks. Like my understanding of French, like my cooking, like my trivial knowledge, like everything about me—thriving for the average.

This uncle, his eldest son was a great artist. He was also interested in computers. He was the first one I knew that connected to the Internet when it was still some kind of new-age type of truckers’-radio. It took a few minutes to connect to people, and then, if you didn’t immediately get disconnected, you were able to send a message. And that was it. A couple of minutes later you would get a response. So this guy, naturally, was one of the first people to jump onto the Startup boom. He was a graphic designer. I don’t know what he does now, but it has nothing to do with art or with success. He has a kid, though.

The second son was a violin player. For years, through his entire childhood, he would practice the violin eight hours a day with some big shot teacher. He would play us classical music recitals, and we would all nod, admiring our cousin for his dedication and slapping ourselves on the back for vaguely recognizing a classical piece. When he was in his early twenties he joined a Celtic band, playing the fiddle. For fun. People do stuff for fun, there’s no shame in that. So he played in the band, and the crowds did an Israeli version of Riverdance, and everyone had a good time. But his mom knew better, and she told him he needed to concentrate on playing the violin professionally. They didn’t spend all this time and she didn’t spend all this money for him to play fun music.

He’s happy now, I guess, playing for seniors on Saturday afternoons. He, too, has reached the end of his quest.

The third son was the muscles. He was the one climbing the tree in the backyard, the one riding his bicycle all night, the one running, lifting, and hitting. He was the one who played basketball professionally before he joined the army. He was the one that spent time in Gaza dressed as a Palestinian woman as part of an elite unit. He was also the one who fell two floors when the roof of a Gaza building he was standing on suddenly collapsed. He still gets a lot of money from the army, apparently, so at least he has that.

Now, if these people who passionately chased their goals never amounted to much, what can I expect? I, who one day learned to play harmonica like Alanis Morissette, dare to expect anything more than what I’ve got?

Some more about me:

Some more about me:

I was born in Israel in 1973. I travelled to Europe with my parents and my sister when I was five. In Holland, our first stop, my parents bought a van from a fat man with dark glasses and a hat. The van had a folding table. We used to go to supermarkets and buy bread. My mom made sandwiches and we ate in the van. A month later we sold the van in Italy. The other day, while cleaning up before going upstairs to sleep, I bumped my head on the wall. I put a towel soaked in cold water on my forehead, but when I woke up the next day I still had a bruise. I thought it was sexy.

Anyway, up there is Buddy. His sister, Ginger, will be featured soon enough.

I feel like I'm taking a big risk here. People in the Sun is a great painting. I'd hate to see it being abused by someone like me with nothing much to say. Anyway, enjoy.

With no experience, the old man that I am, I will somehow link some favorites here, just so people could have a clue what they're getting into. If you like those links, then check it out in a week or so. If the links offend you I can't help you much. You should blame your parents. If the links bore you, than go away and never come back. I hate you anyway.

Here goes:

Random blog: http://sweetiec.blogspot.com/ It's pink, it's German, it has Russian dolls. How more random can you get?

Another random blog: another one, more serious. It has computers and Intel chips, and ducks.

A personal picture:

That's about it for now. Have fun.